Monday, May 22, 2006

Sunday Night Baseball/Holy Cow The Royals Are Bad

I went to the Yanks-Mets game last night so I didn’t watch ESPN’s broadcast of the game. I was told that Peter Gammons was doing his usual one-sided reporting last night, blathering on like the Red Sox fan that he is. Apparently he said something to the effect of how ARod would have been more appreciated with Boston than he is with New York.

Honestly, how is Peter Gammons in the Baseball Hall of Fame with that kind of commentary? Besides the fact that his statement is completely untrue, that so-called pearl of wisdom does nothing to further the analysis and understanding of the game of baseball.

I won’t spend any words arguing why Gammons’ sentiment is utterly ridiculous; it should be self-evident. I will simply end with a question: how is it that a truly worthy Bostonian (Jim Rice) can’t make the Hall of Fame despite being one of the most productive players of his generation but that ancient, drunken deformity of creation (Peter Gammons) is so honored? Truly stupefying.

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Not that this should be any surprise but I was checking the standings today and saw that the Kansas City Royals are already 18 games out of first place through the first 41 games of the season (25% of the season in the books). For those scoring at home, that puts the Royals elimination number at 103. It’s hard to believe that the Royals might be mathematically eliminated in mid to late August at their current rate of futility. Goddamn it must suck to be a baseball fan in Kansas City. Then again, their GM has made so many unacceptably bad trades^ that it’s no wonder the Royals stink.

^Johnny Damon and Mark Ellis to Oakland for Angel Berroa was bad...Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez was worse. How GM Allard Baird kept his job, I have no idea...